For the third quarter ending in March, sales hit 1049 lots – a 9 per cent jump on the previous quarter and almost 24 per cent higher on the September 2022 quarter, which appears to be the low point in the cycle.

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Stockland chief executive Tarun Gupta, who was a speaker at the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation forum on affordable housing in Sydney on Wednesday, said the developer of master-planned communities business showed continued improvement over the quarter.

“Stockland is on track to deliver on our 2023 guidance. Our focus on operational excellence continues to deliver strong performance across our diversified portfolio,” Gupta said.

But when looking at the same time last year, the rate of sales were down, showing the pullback since interest rates started to rise. This is consistent with the group’s outlook in the first-half results issued in February.

Macquarie Equities’ analysts said given time remaining in the 2023 financial year and line of sight on settlements, “we see little downside risk to settlement guidance”.

As part of its push into affordable housing, Gupta created the group’s land lease business, where Stockland owns the land and rents out the property, which resulted in net sales of 50 homes for the third quarter. This reflected the staging of releases to allow production to catch up with demand.

Gupta said Stockland’s coming land lease project launches are supporting “elevated inquiry levels, demonstrating ongoing demand for land lease community living”.

But he told the forum that while it was the biggest lever, “increasing the supply of private housing on its own will not solve Australia’s affordability crisis”.

“It requires action across the entire housing continuum – from investment in social and affordable housing, build-to-rent and shared equity, to the sale of private houses – and diversity of product to suit people’s lifestyles and life stages.”